Warm Up

Today I am using a fun book for my lesson. The book is fun and easy to follow but many of my ELL students may not know what a Warthog is. The CCSS encourages teachers to build background knowledge or connect with existing knowledge to help with comprehension. My lesson used the video to understand what a warthog is, the circle map to brainstorm adjectives and our writing activity refers to their cupcake.

I begin my lesson with my students seated on the carpet for whole group reading block.

"I love to watch movies with my grandkids. One movie we love to watch is Lion King. My favorite characters are Timon and Pumba. They are so funny. Do you know what kind of animal is Pumba?"

If they do not know I will tell them that he is a warthog.

"Hmmm. Do you think Pumba looks like a real warthog? He is a cartoon and they made him cute, funny and he can talk. Real warthogs are big, ugly and stinky. They can not talk. Let's watch this really short video of a real warthog."

After watching the short video we discuss what we saw.

"The warthog has long legs and his tusks are huge. Who thinks he is cute? EWWWWW. They are not very cute, but Pumba is cute. I want to read to you about some cute warthogs that like to cook. Do you think REAL warthogs can cook? No, they like to run and play in the mud."

Reading the Story

10 minutes

"In the video, did we see the warthogs cooking? Did they have a house? Hmmmm, look at my book. It says, "Warthogs in the Kitchen". Do you think this story is real or make believe? You are right, it is make believe. Make believe stories are sometimes funny, let's see if the warthogs can cook."

"Before I read the story, I wonder what the warthogs are going to cook. Would you turn to your partner and say "Hi partner". Using the sentence frame, "I think the warthogs are going to cook _____.", tell your partner what you think the warthogs are going to cook. Ready? Go! "I thing the warthogs are going to cook ____.".

I walk around to make sure my students are all participating and shuffle kids around if they are not using their school talk. When both partners have said their sentence frame, I ask them to put their hands on their heads. When everyone has talked I tell them to give their partners a high five and turn to look at me. I call on a few students that I heard give interesting ideas on what the warthogs are cooking.

"Let's read the book and find out what they are going to cook. The story has words and numbers. We will be counting as we read. We start with the number one. Everyone show me with your fingers the number one. Good."

I continue reading and to have them show me on their fingers what number we are on.

I stop on the page where the warthogs are looking for "measures". I explain that these are the measuring cups and measuring spoons that we use when we cook. I also explain the word "greedy" when we get to the page where the "greedy little bear" is in the bowl of batter. Greedy means he wants it all to himself. We don't want to be greedy, that is not nice.

When we get to the page where a warthog finds pickles to add to the batter we have partner talk.

"I like pickles, but I don't know if I would like them in the cupcakes. Turn to your partner and say, Yes, I like pickles in my cupcakes, or NO, I don't like pickles in my cupcakes."

Again I walk and listen for participation. Give your partner a high five and turn and look at me. Thank you. I like to get my students involved in the story by getting them to talk.

I finish the story and we laugh at how big their tummies are after eating the cupcakes.

Warthogs in the Kitchen

Writing Activity

10 minutes

"The warthogs loved their cupcakes. They think pickle cupcakes are delicious. Delicious is an adjective, a word that describes a noun. The noun we are talking about is the cupcakes. Let's sing our Adjective song."

"Let's pretend we are going to bake cupcakes. What would your cupcakes be? Would they be delicious, good, tastey or yummy? Let's brainstorm using a bubble map about the adjectives we could use in our sentences. Remember we are thinking of words to tell how our cupcakes taste."

I go up and down the rows and write down everyone's adjective. There is not standard for teaching adjectives. I teach grammar in my ELL class and find it necessary to teach adjectives so my students can write descriptive sentences. Yummy was the most popular word, so I prompted some ideas. When everyone has said a word for the bubble map, we review the words quickly.

"I want you all to look at the circle map and think, touch your head and think about how your cupcake is going to taste."

"The sentence frame you are going to use is, "My cupcake is _____.". We will use the adjectives from our bubble map."

I model the writing process using the document camera. Using sentence frames makes this writing assignment easy. The sentence frame teaches my students correct sentence grammar. I like to model the activity to demonstrate my writing expectations."

"Remember we are going to write our sentences on the bottom of the paper. What goes on the top part? The picture, right. What will my picture be? Yes, it will be a picture of me with my cupcake. Thumbs up if you have seen my sentence and picture because I am turning the camera off. I want you to sound out all the words by yourself. I will help you if need help."

I have my class helpers pass out the papers while I dismiss my seated students to their tables.

I walk around and help those that need support with sounding out the words.

I collect the papers and we meet on the carpet when everyone is finished writing.

adjective song

bubble map

Wrap Up

10 minutes

Each student gets the opportunity to read his/her sentence to the class. Many of my students want to read but become shy and whisper their sentences. Because my students are shy and quiet, I began to call them up to the front of the class by row or small groups. They each give their Oral presentation one at a time but do it surrounded by their peers. This has been a strategy that not only speeds up this part of the lesson, but allows my students to feel safe while orally presenting their work. After each reading we applaud and cheer.